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February 16, 2010

The Wilhelm Gustloff was a German ship sunk with the greatest loss of life in maritime history. We are extremely pleased to join with the Explorers’ Club to hear about the diving exploration of this ship directly from the expedition’s leader, Mike Boring who, despite his name, is known as a captivating speaker.

Mike Boring of Chester, Virginia led a US/UK/Polish technical diving expedition to explore the site of history's greatest maritime catastrophe, the shipwreck of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a Nazi refugee ship overcrowded with Germans and their allies fleeing the vengeful Soviet army. In the closing months of WW II the ship was torpedoed and sunk in the icy Baltic Sea with the loss of nearly 10,000 lives. The team faced many daunting physical challenges in diving and photo-documenting this icon of WW II history in the deep and frigid waters of the Baltic. These obstacles were matched only by the difficulty in navigating the obstreperous Polish bureaucracy in seeking permission to conduct the first expedition to explore the ghostly remains of the Wilhelm Gustloff.